At a trade show this week (Discovery 2011, organized by Ontario Centres of Excellence), I was impressed by the number of innovative, leading-edge exhibitors – and depressed by their general inability to communicate their messages.
All the classic errors of trade-show marketing were in evidence: unmanned booths; participants sitting around looking bored; booths where the reps were so happy talking to each other that attendees were afraid to interrupt; businesses that assumed their company name sells itself, so they required no other display material; and booths drowning in ugly signs and charts that conveyed no single comprehensible message.
Although many booths at this show were manned by scientists and academics, trade-show marketing isn’t rocket science. Your job is to attract appropriate visitors with eye-catching visuals and an intriguing value proposition. Then you engage the attendees and qualify them as potential customers or other useful stakeholders.
Here are a few specific tips to make your next trade-show appearance more fun and profitable:
Qualify leads. No exhibitors I spoke with at Discovery asked me why I was interested in their product, or any other question that might qualify me as a customer. This means trade-show reps were wasting time with random attendees and had less opportunity to engage real prospects.Make sure your reps are standing and eyeing passersby when they aren’t talking to attendees one-on-one. It looks more professional, plus it ensures greater eye contact. This will generate more conversations, which will lead to a lot more opportunities than you get from just sitting around.Figure out your key message. Are you actively looking for customers? Collecting prospects’ names for a mailing list? Or trying to impress potential suppliers, regulators or investors? Once you know what you are trying to do, create signage and visuals that reinforce your message.What do you want people to do? At Discovery, few exhibitors seemed to know what they were there to do, so visitors didn’t know who to engage with.
Give people reasons to come close to your booth. Attract visitors’ attention with product samples or intriguing props, or cater to their baser appetites by offering free samples or chocolate. How will people know they are prospects if they rush by your booth without engaging?Advertise in advance. Susan Ward of About.com’s Small Business Canada site encourages exhibitors to plan ahead to make their trade-show presence a success. Invite your clients, customers, suppliers, and other contacts to attend the show. Be sure to provide all the details, such as how to find your booth. Promote upcoming trade shows on your website as well.Ensure your message is clean and clear. Attendees will walk right past hundreds of booths, says Toronto fashion entrepreneur Ben Barry. “You don’t have much time to make sure they understand your offering,” he says. So keep your booth simple. “Hang key informational about your products at eye-level. Post all key information that is required for your target customers to make purchase decisions: prices, minimum orders, and shipping costs.” Prior to the show, have a few friends visit your booth, Barry adds. Ask if they find your display user-friendly or memorable.There’s not much point in marketing through trade shows unless you’re going to do it right.
Posted in: Entrepreneur Tags: marketing; trade shows
No comments:
Post a Comment